The Smallest of Details
by Kitty Ryan
Summary: He never thought that wanting Daine was anything wrong, or above his station. The tragedy of it was, neither did she, even if she did only think of him a handful of times, and only until...well, everyone knows that story. But Perin was happy, for a time.
1. Illuminated Flourishes

**The Smallest of Details**

_Or, the Anti-'Focus'_

K. Ryan, 2006.

* * *

**Part One:** Illuminated Flourishes—a beginning.

* * *

She was beautiful, right enough. A man might have wanted to go to bed with someone taller and finer, with a body more lush and a manner more bright, but hers would be the face he'd want to see on his pillow in the morning. 

She was a child, when I saw her, not that I was so ancient myself. A mite with straw in her hair who'd be standing up to those big Rider fellows and the hard Rider lasses who had no time for pen pushers like me, hands on hips that would grow in time. She had to force her voice to carry. It wasn't a shouting voice. It was soft and blurred around the edges, not so different from the mothers and aunties and grandmothers in my family, who kept us humble even though their menfolk had been given quills and ink and finer manners years back. The Redferns always know where they come from.

Rumours were thick about her from the beginning. She was the girl who had spoken to the Queen and had no idea who she was. She was crazy. She talked to animals like they were people. She had no father, and never tried to hide it, her muddied, muddled birth plain in her name. She could shoot straight at a target from two-hundred paces—I never believed that one, not till I saw it for myself—and she was a mage of some strange, unknown sort. That one turned out true as well. She was a mix of high and low, talking to great folk with a village accent. I didn't see her too often, but paths crossed, and I was drawn to her, and she had a ready smile. Often wistful, as if she couldn't believe her good fortune to be in such a place, and that touched my heart.

My great grandfather had been a Perin, and he too had gone from poverty into a different world, where words and learning changed his voice and his ways, and the money he was paid for these skills kept him comfortable and able to find a wife who could give him sons that would be educated, and grandsons, all the way down to me.

Watching this girl, the Daine with straw in her hair, as she flourished like fine lettering was a wonderful thing, especially as the core of her stayed the same, even with all her adventuring. She never felt herself too good to notice me. There was a "hullo, Perin," with every pass in every corridor.

For any girl who doesn't have a rich, demanding sort of father, fourteen is a marriageable age. When Daine turned fourteen I slipped a small present under the door. It mayn't have seemed much, but I worked hard. An illuminated page, with a border of animals. That pony she was never seen without, the hounds that fawned on her; some housecats. Linnets, doves—even a few mice. She would appreciate the small details. I considered adding in her bow and the like—fletched arrows can be made very pretty with ink, but I left it out in the end. A woman in arms makes my blood chill. It's a brave thing to do, but wrong, somehow. I hate to think of any woman endangering herself that way, when she has no need to. Daine, no matter how much eerie talent she had with a bow, is no different. There are men for fighting. So, I left the page free of weapons, but I still wrote _Felicitations to the prettiest savior of Pirate's Swoop_ in my most careful script, because, besides anything else, it was true.

When she came up to me later, thankful and blushing, I found that I was learning what it was to truly be a happy man.

* * *

**Note: **I've been writing on this site for years, and _Focus_, the Daine/Numair piece that took me years to finish, has always been my most successful piece. At least, the fic with the most readers, which is something I've always cherished and also found slightly surprising. Overall, I'm reasonably happy with the piece (I never truly _like_ my writing after a few years have gone by) but there is one particular part of it I'd like to change if I ever went back and rewrote it. I vilified Perin the clerk a little too thoroughly. _Realms of the Gods_ only mentions him once, and never as the sleaze/unfortunate/rapist that I have made him out to be. He is simply described as one of Daine's "more persistent swains" whose kisses she "likes well enough." A lack of passion on her part needn't signify the poor bugger's absolute repugnance. A review from one of my dearest friends, and some degree of maturation on my part, has helped me realize this. So, this four-part fic is dedicated to Lea (Alone in the Desert), who has watched me as I've grown up some, and also to anyone who has ever reviewed my work, because you all help me continue to write. 

Goodness, this is ponderous! Enough, I think.


	2. Sketches and Inks

**The Smallest of Details**

_Or, the Anti-'Focus'_

K. Ryan, 2006.

* * *

**Part Two:** Sketches and Inks

* * *

"It's…beautiful. I don't know how you managed it. I…"

Daine isn't a hesitant girl. I'd never seen her stumble over anything, in that lilting soft voice of hers. Seeing her look up at me with wide eyes, stammering as her hands twisted together almost worried me, but I smiled. "You like it, then."

"I just told you I did!" _That _was more like it, along with the little stamp of the foot I think she hardly noticed.

"That you did," I said. "And repetition is by nature tedious."

Daine laughed. "Now you sound like Numair," she said.

I shrugged. "Not quite so old, I hope."

Daine's expression turned thoughtful. Her hands relaxed. "He's old? Well, I _suppose_ he is." She laughed again, the movement of her head making a long, smoky curl fall across her face. She made a small, irritated sound and pushed it aside. "I've just never thought of him that way. What I want to know is how you got Cloud so fair—I thought you were the clerk, not an artist. And how'd you know it was my birthday anyway?"

I grinned at her. Couldn't help it. "That's a lot of questions," I said, and some silly bit of recklessness (or was it a reckless bit of silliness?) had me give a shaky copy of a court-bow and hold out my arm. "Walk with me?"

Daine sniffed, but she was smiling a little. "Male gallantriness," she said. "It's all very silly. Like your 'prettiest savior' piece." She didn't take my arm. I wasn't expecting her to.

"I get paid to copy down only the truth. And '_Gallantriness,_'" I told her, "is not a word."

"And you'd know that," she said, taking a step forward and beckoning for me to follow her. I did, of course.

"I would," I said. "It's also why I know it's your birthday. There are no secrets from a man who writes things down."

Daine, fed up with her disobedient curls, pulled her hair-tie out, shaking her head inelegantly and then dragging her hair back again. It looked painful. She seemed to have no idea I was there, watching her. It was rather mesmerizing. "You should get paid for drawing," she said.

I blushed. "I…dabble," I managed. "I'm no Volney Rain."

This drew a lightening-quick grin from her; lightening-bright, too, in her eyes. "Anyone who can hold a brush thinks they're Volney Rain," she said, tone affectionate as she spoke of Corus' legendry old artist, someone it was reputed she had become quite thick with. "That is, until they meet him."

"And then they don't _want _to be him," I laughed. "Your pony I drew from some distance. She doesn't seem overly fond of strangers, and I'm afraid I don't love you enough yet to endure injury and scarring from her rather sizable teeth." Someone entirely foreign had taken over my mouth, but Daine didn't seem to have noticed. She was scowling.

"Cloud needs to stop with that," she muttered. "I'm not on my own in the wilds any longer."

"Ah," I said. "But mothers never stop thinking their child is out somewhere in the wilds, thrown to wolves. Your Cloud looks like she has a fairly maternal kick."

This, she _did _hear. There was a sudden look of pain that contorted her face, and made me feel like the biggest idiot that ever lived. I looked away, blushing again.

"I've offended you. I'm sorry."

"No!" she said, too fast. "It's nothing. " She laid a hand on my arm, and I faced her again. She looked up at me, embarrassed and concerned. "I'll talk to Cloud. She'll be nice to you."

The blush was still there, hot on the back of my neck. I laughed a little. "Thank you," I said, and my voice cracked a little, which made me blush _more_. Deciding to speak again after that was difficult. "It's an honour, I'm sure. Fel… felicitations, Daine"

* * *

We spoke more after that. Nothing much, still mainly hallway crossings. I had work, so did she, and it was strange, how much I was aware of Master Salmalìn's presence after she had touched me that once on the arm. He was always there. Laughing and lecturing; an impeccably dressed, very tall shadow. If I had been Daine, I would have found it cloying, but she never seemed to notice. She'd walk with me sometimes, and we'd talk about nothing in particular. I found it fascinating, the way she'd refer to animals she knew, mute friends and confidantes who, it seemed, were not so mute. It was hard to take her seriously, but she demanded it all the same.

It was especially hard when wolves came, and she said she was traipsing off to Dunlath with only her teacher and these feral creatures for company, because they'd _asked_ her.

I didn't tell her I'd miss her when she was one, but still…perhaps she knew. She could get inside the minds of other animals, after all.


End file.
